CHAPTER 1

COMMUNICATION IN THE WORKPLACE

TEACHING SUGGESTIONS
Much of the information you will cover in the first meeting is routine—introduction of yourself, office
hours, course requirements, operating policies, and such. In addition, probably you will introduce the
subject matter. Chapter 1 contains such an introduction, so you may want to summarize its contents,
adding to it examples and illustrations from your knowledge and experience. Your overall goals should
be to convince the students that business communication is important in business and to their personal
advancement in business; to convey basic facts about the business-communication environment; and to
bring out that business communication, as a problem-solving activity, requires analysis, creativity, and
judgment (there are no magic formulas).

If you want to add some interest to this first meeting, try assigning a message to be written in class (but
of course it is not for grade). Make the problem a difficult one—a refusal or other bad-news situation
requiring tactful handling. Without instructions on such problems, most of the students will write
messages that are really bad. Save these messages until you cover this problem in the course; and then
give the messages back. When the students see their early writing specimens and compare them with
their current work, they see the progress they have made. Also, the exercise is good for a few laughs,
especially if you read some of the messages aloud to the class.

TEXT SUMMARY, LECTURE OUTLINE

The Role of Communication in Business
Slide 1-1
Communication is important to you and to the business you will work for. As the subtitle of the book
suggests, successful communication is largely about making “connections” (connecting pieces of
information, connecting people to people for mutual understanding, connecting through communication
channels).

Slides 1-2, 1-3, 1-4, 1-5

For you, good communication skills can lead to advancement.
Your performance will be judged largely by your ability to communicate.
The higher you advance, the greater will be your need for communication skills.
For the business for which you will work, communicating is important because it is a major part of the
work of the business.
Communication is essential for organized activity.
Much of the work done involves the processing of information.
Unfortunately, many business people do not communicate well.
You might share highly publicized communication blunders that companies have made, or ask students
to share stories they may have about how good or poor communication in a company had a significant
result, either for a particular communicator or for a company in general.

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 Slide 1-6
Communication in business falls into three basic categories.

Internal-operational communication is all the communication that occurs in conducting work within
the business.
It is the work done to carry out the operating plan (the business’s plan for doing whatever it was
formed to do).
It takes many forms—orders and instructions of superiors, oral exchanges between workers,
written reports, emails, memorandums, and such.
Much of it is conducted through the business’s computer network.
External-operational communication is all the communicating businesses do with people and groups
outside the business.
This includes direct selling (sales presentations, advertising, public relations activities,
correspondence.)
Nowadays, much of this communicating is technology assisted (computers, fax, E-mail)
As businesses are dependent on outside people and groups, external-operational communication
is necessary for success.
Personal communication is the exchange of information and feelings among the workers.
People will talk when they come together.
Much of this talk is personal.
But this communicating can affect the workers’ attitudes—and thus their job performance.
As too much and too little personal communication can affect productivity, a middle ground is
desirable.
The communicating that occurs in a business may be viewed as a network—becoming increasingly
complex as the business becomes larger. This network has two parts: formal and informal.

Slides 1-7, 1-8

The formal network consists of communication along established channels in the business.
The communication flow can be downward, upward, or lateral.
Each business develops its own genres, or forms, of communication to get its work done.
The informal network consists of all the personal communicating that goes on in the business.
It follows no set pattern and may link any of the workers in the business.
Its structure is ever changing and may be extremely complex.
Known as the grapevine, it carries rumors, gossip, and such—messages that can affect the
organization’s operations.
Wise executives work with it rather than against it.

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 Here, you can invite students to share their experiences with formal and informal networks in places
where they or those they know have worked. Ask them who the “talk leaders” were in their
examples of grapevines, and point out that even those without a great deal of formal power can have
considerable informal power.
Slide 1-9
How much and what kind of communicating a business does varies depending on the type of business, its
environment, and the nature of the people involved.
The size/complexity/geographical dispersion of the company will affect its communication.
The industry it is in, and current issues in that industry, will affect its communication.
The culture of the company influences, and is influenced by, its communication.
The kind of people in the company affect its communication style and practices.
Again, you can draw on students’ own experience as employees and consumers to help them understand
the significance of these factors. Compare students’ experiences working for large and small companies
and companies in different industries. Get them to volunteer stories about the organizational culture
where they’ve worked or shopped, and to discuss how the culture probably influenced, and was
influenced by, the company’s communication practices.
The Business Communication Process
Because the communicating that goes on in business is done by people, it is helpful for us to know how
communication between business people occurs.

Slides 1-10, 1-11, 1-12

1. Sensing a communication need. You can emphasize that a “need” can be either a problem to
solve or an opportunity to take advantage of.
2. Defining the situation. Here, the writer/speaker gathers information about the situation—about
what has happened or what might be achieved, about possible audiences, about prior similar
situations, about organizational goals and possible means for achieving them.
3. Considering possible communication strategies. Given the situation, in what different ways might
the communication challenge be tackled? What strategies could best further the interests of the
parties involved?
4. Selecting a course of action. Here the writer/speaker decides not only what to say but also how to
say it. He or she makes basic decisions about the type of message that will be sent.
5. Composing the message. You can preview the advice in Chapter 5 about the writing process.
Help students avoid the “perfect first draft” syndrome and emphasize the importance of all three main
composing stages (planning, drafting, and revising).
6. Sending the message. Students often do not realize how important message timing is, or how
important it is to imagine the (busy, hectic) work context in which the recipient will receive the
message. This step deserves some careful thought.
7. Receiving the message: Now we’re over on the recipient’s side of the process. If the sender has
made wise decisions (about timing, channel, format, and framing of the message), the odds of the
recipient’s actually reading and/or hearing the message are promising. (Otherwise, as you can
remind your students, the message might get thrown away, buried under other messages, or deleted.)

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8. Interpreting the message: As the recipient processes the message, he or she will be forming all
sorts of impressions—about the writer/speaker, about the writer/speaker’s company, about the goal of
the message, about the message’s specific contents, about why the message is significant (or not).
9. Deciding on a response. If the recipient attends to the message, he or she will have a response,
whether it’s the one the sender intends or not. If the message has been tailored carefully to the
recipient’s interests, the recipient’s response—whether a return message, an action, or simply a
change in attitude—will have a good chance of being the desired one.
10. Replying to the message. Here the recipient becomes the sender, and the communication cycle
begins again. And it may lead to another cycle—and another. The cycles may continue as long as the
participants wish to communicate. In oral communication, you can point out, the cycles tend to
happen quickly as the communicators work to create a mutual understanding, whereas the
communication cycles in written communication tend to occur more slowly.
Slide 1-11
With this slide you can return to the model on page 11 and take a closer look at the contexts in
which business communication takes place:
The larger business-economic, sociocultural, historical context
The communicators’ relationship
The communicators’ individual contexts (organizational, professional, personal)
As the text says, communication is not simply about moving information from point A to point
B. Anyone who neglects the specific contexts in which communication is taking place is
doomed to be an unsuccessful communicator. Factoring these multiple contexts into
communication decisions is a large part of treating business communication as a problem-solving
process, the focus of the next slide.
Slide 1-12
Students often expect business communication to be essentially about filling in standard formats,
following standard formulas. This simplistic attitude needs to be nipped in the bud early in the
course! As the chapter says, most business-communication tasks are not solutions to well-
defined problems, but instead require . . .
Careful analysis (to gather and interpret the relevant information)
Creativity (to think of possible solutions)
Judgment (to pick the solution that will fit this situation best)
Slide 1-13
Analysis of the communication process reveals some basic truths:

Meaning is in the mind—and no two minds are alike.

As your discussion of the business-communication contexts will have brought out,
communicating to someone who is, to a great extent, in his or her own world can be a
daunting challenge.
The symbols we use in communication are imperfect, and so are out best communication efforts.

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 The meanings of words are socially agreed upon, not absolute, so what words mean is
always, to some extent, shifting. And the problem is heightened when the
communicators are not of the same culture (national, regional, professional, etc.)
Words are a crude substitute for the real thing.
There are no guarantees that any message will be successful—but the analytical process
presented in the communication model will make the odds of success as high as possible.
Communication is about information and relationships—which you will have brought out well by now.
But you can look ahead to Chapter 4, which focuses on the relationship dimension of communication.
All of this supports the need for adaptation—our next topic.
Slide 1-14
The “key” to meeting communication challenges is adaptation—tailoring the message to the audience
and their situation.
Slide 1-15
The last slide calls attention to the decision making involved in crafting a context-appropriate, successful
message.

ANSWERS TO THE CRITICAL THINKING QUESTIONS

1. “If there’s no definitive solution, then all ways of handling a business communication
problem are equally good.” Using the discussion of business communication problem
solving in this chapter, explain why this statement is false.
It is true that there are no guarantees that even the best-planned, most carefully designed message
will succeed. But one that is not well thought out and well executed will almost certainly fail.
2. Think of a recent transaction you had with a business person or a staff person at your
school. Describe the contexts of your communication, from the larger context (business-
economic, sociocultural, and historical) down to the personal contexts (to the extent that you
know them). How did these help determine the outcome of your communication?
To get students thinking, you might invite those who have tried to argue a parking or library fine or
to resolve a registration or payment problem to reflect on contexts that helped determine the nature
and outcome of the communication.
3. Is the ability to communicate more important to the successful performance of a supervisor
than to the successful performance of a company president? Defend your answer.
Certainly communication ability is important to both, but the president is likely to have greater
communication needs than those at lower levels. As noted in the chapter, the higher one’s position,
the greater the need for communication.
4. Make a list of the types of companies requiring extensive communication. Then make a list
of types of companies requiring little communication. What explains the difference in these
two groups?
The lists will vary. Some possibilities for companies requiring extensive communication are these:
insurance companies, newspaper publishers, electronics manufacturers, banks, and real estate
companies. Examples of organizations requiring less communication are these: plumbing
companies, painting contractors, home builders, and television repair shops.

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 As noted in the text, certain factors explain these differences between groups: 1) Nature of the
business. Some work activities require little communication. Plumbers working for a plumbing
company, for example, often spend long work periods with little or no communication. On the
other hand, most workers for an insurance company rarely have long periods of time without
communication. 2) Operating plan of the business. Depending on the size and nature of operations,
operating plans vary. The larger and more complex operations obviously require much
communication in order to coordinate activities. 3) The business environment. All other things
being equal, those working for companies in a stable environment will probably need to
communicate less, and less often, than those in a volatile one. 4) Geographic dispersion. Clearly,
coordinating a widely dispersed workforce will require more communicating than coordinating a
centrally located one. 5) The nature of the people in the business. Employees who are comfortable
and skillful communicators, for example, will probably generate more communications than those
who aren’t. 6) The company culture. Some companies “like” and encourage communication more
than others.
5. List the types of external-operational and internal-operational communication that take
place in an organization with which you are familiar (school, fraternity, church, or such).
Each student’s list should be evaluated on its merits.
6. Identify the types of technology used primarily in internal- and external-organizational
communication to transmit messages. Explain what you think might account for the
differences.
Internally, workers send electronic mail through networks to others whether in the same location,
the country, or around the world. Externally, workers transmit messages by fax, electronic mail, or
printed copy. Electronic mail’s internal use is primarily accounted for by its ease of use,
accessibility, and informal nature. Letters, on the other hand, are more formal. They are typically
used more often externally than internally. Also, both fax and printed copy produce a hard copy,
which is also perceived as formal.
7. “Never mix business with personal matters—it just leads to damaged relationships, poor
business decisions, or both.” In what ways might this be a fair statement? In what ways is it
unwise advice?
The statement has merit in that getting too personally involved with a business associate can lead
one either to neglect the business goals or to risk damaging the personal relationship in the interest
of business. It is also not ethical to develop a personal relationship just to exploit it for business
reasons. On the other hand, even in business contexts, people are still people. They cannot leave
their humanness at the door—and, arguably, business would not be rewarding and worthwhile if
they could. The good business communicator always remembers that communication is a human
activity and takes care to foster goodwill between the communicators.
8. Describe the network of communication in an organization with which you are familiar
(preferably a simple one). Discuss and explain.
Each description should be evaluated on its merits.
9. [See how this problem is framed in the book.] Think of an organization you know well and
decide upon its dominant cultural metaphor. Is it one of Morgan’s? Or is it a family? A
team? A community? A prison? A mixture of several kinds? Once you settle on your
metaphor, be prepared to explain how this organization’s culture affects, and is affected by,
its communication practices.
Each example should be evaluated on its merits.

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10. As this chapter said, companies develop specific forms of communication, or genres, that
enable them to get their work done. In a place where you have worked or another
organization you have been a member of, what were the main forms of communication with
the employees or members? To what extent were these uniquely adapted to the needs of the
organization?
Each answer should be evaluated on its merits.
11. Using this chapter’s discussion of communication, explain how people reading or hearing the
same message can disagree on its meaning.
The explanations should note that our specific contexts give us different mental filters (storehouses
of experience, knowledge, bias, and such). Thus, when two people interpret a message through
their unique filters, the meanings given the message are likely to differ. For example, assume that
John has worked for companies in which the human resources department was poorly run, while
Bill has seen firsthand that well-run HR departments can make important contributions to the
morale and bottom-line of a company. Their responses to a message announcing a new hire in the
HR department would differ sharply.
12. Give an example of a word or phrase used in business, in the news, or in our general
culture and explain why it can be construed in several ways depending on the interpreter’s
point of view.
Some examples might be “diversity,” “globalization,” “quality,” “immigrant,” “leadership,”
“millenials.”

SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS TO CRITICAL THINKING EXERCISES

1. This is a simple but educational research project. You might ask students to attach sample web
pages from the company to support their observations.
2. Obviously, Megan has exercised her strong communication skills to influence her coworkers to
accept her views. Probably they recognize her as their informal leader. The situation is difficult
and has no one best solution. Thus, each student’s analysis must be judged on its merits.
Some students will favor taking a strong approach with a goal of heading off Megan’s assumed
authority. This course might involve making it clear to Megan that the decision is yours, that you
believe the procedure will work, and that you expect her cooperation in making it work.
Others will suggest a more diplomatic solution. One such solution is to explain clearly to Megan
that the procedure has been effective wherever it has been tried. Perhaps you could even sell her on
the procedure and get her cooperation in making it work. If she does cooperate, you have gained in
the eyes of your subordinates, and your problem is solved. If she does not, then you may need to
move to a strong approach.
3. It is easy to see how this message stirred up negative feelings on the readers’ part. In most minds,
the negative language used here is associated with harsh, autocratic leadership—the kind most of
us do not like. As will be explained in following chapters, such negative words create bad mental
images. In addition, the lecturing tone used throughout the document is associated with negative
experiences. Most people react negatively when people talk down to them. A much more
diplomatic message could have been written.
4. This is a relatively easy research project that can get students thinking about the communication
efforts—and challenges—involved in running a business. See Chapter 19 for article databases that
students might consult.

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5. The important thing here is that students show they’ve thought about the problem—and the likely
consequences of each possible solution. Perhaps the optimum solution would be to speak with
Sarah McCann and give her the choice. But one could make a case that, given the importance to
all employees of keeping the company financially viable, it would be ethical in this case for the
president to make the command decision to send someone else to communicate with James
Pritchett to get his desperately needed business—as long as provisions were made to direct future
business Sarah’s way. (Of course, the communication to Sarah about this decision would have to
be carefully worded.) Students should learn that weighing the ethical obligations to all parties
involved, and then communicating the resulting decision, can be quite difficult.

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